was of a
sedate, earnest, and philosophic temperament. Having never been outside
of the tropics before, he found many phenomena off Cape Horn, which
absorbed his attention, and set him, like other philosophers, to feign
theories corresponding to the marvels he beheld. At the first snow,
when he saw the deck covered all over with a white powder, as it were,
he expanded his eyes into stewpans; but upon examining the strange
substance, he decided that this must be a species of super-fine flower,
such as was compounded into his master's "_duffs_," and other dainties.
In vain did an experienced natural philosopher belonging to the
fore-top maintain before his face, that in this hypothesis Wooloo was
mistaken. Wooloo's opinion remained unchanged for some time.

As for the hailstones, they transported him; he went about with a
bucket, making collections, and receiving contributions, for the
purpose of carrying them home to his sweethearts for glass beads; but
having put his bucket away, and returning to it again, and finding
nothing but a little water, he accused the by-standers of stealing his
precious stones.

This suggests another story concerning him. The first time he was given
a piece of "duff" to eat, he was observed to pick out very carefully
every raisin, and throw it away, with a gesture indicative of the
highest disgust. It turned out that he had taken the raisins for bugs.

In our man-of-war, this semi-savage, wandering about the gun-deck in
his barbaric robe, seemed a being from some other sphere. His tastes
were our abominations: ours his. Our creed he rejected: his we. We
thought him a loon: he fancied us fools. Had the case been reversed;
had we been Polynesians and he an American, our mutual opinion of each
other would still have remained the same. A fact proving that neither
was wrong, but both right.

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE NIGHT-WATCHES.

Though leaving the Cape behind us, the severe cold still continued, and
one of its worst consequences was the almost incurable drowsiness
induced thereby during the long night-watches. All along the decks,
huddled between the guns, stretched out on the carronade slides, and in
every accessible nook and corner, you would see the sailors wrapped in
their monkey jackets, in a state of half-conscious torpidity, lying
still and freezing alive, without the power to rise and shake
themselves.

"Up--up, you lazy dogs!" our good-natured Third Lieutenant, a
Virginian,